The Denver Post is lucky enough to own copies of many of its past rotogravure and color newspaper sections. Most are viewable on microfilm, a stable way to store images. But to move further into the digital age, the sections we are enjoying in frames on the wall are being dismantled, photographed and digitized using an ingenious vacuum table.

Photographer Cyrus McCrimmon at work.

Denver Post photographer Cyrus McCrimmon is photographing each newspaper page by first flattening it on a vacuum table (literally using a vacuum attached to a table with holes drilled into the top). The camera, a Nikon D800, is mounted atop a copystand and connected to a computer. Cyrus controls the shot he will take, setting focus, exposure and composition before firing the camera through the computer.

Cyrus sets controls of the camera through a computer.

There are two strobe lights with lighting umbrellas positioned to even out the light source as a shot is taken.

The vacuum table.

Empire magazine sections readied for copying.

The Denver Post is also copying colorful graphics and advertising from the 1940s and 1950s, digitizing images for planned galleries. Working from the original newsprint pages ensures a high level of quality to the digitized images. We hope readers will enjoy these blasts from the past as much as we do.

Vacuum table in action.

Denver Post readers fondly remember Empire magazine, which has had several reincarnations over the years. Its focus was always The West. Its color photographs were cherished as much as the tales told in its pages. Fortunately, we have many Empire magazines in hand that we can explore.